Dragon Quest

The Main Menu in Dragon Quest provides access to several crucial game functions:

Item List: View and manage all the items you have collected.

Use Item: Select an item from your inventory to use it.

Equip: Equip weapons, armour, shields, or accessories to improve your character's abilities.

Discard: Remove unwanted weapons, armour, shields, or accessories from your inventory.

Status: This screen displays your Hero's current level, HP (health points) and MP (magic points), equipped weapon, armour, shield, accessory, stats, and EXP (experience points) amounts.

Spells: View a list of all the spells your Hero currently knows.

Settings:

• Message Speed: Adjust the speed at which text appears on screen, which also affects battle speed.
• Sound: Control the volume levels for music and SFX (sound effects).

Travellers' Tips: Access helpful information and advice about the game.

Quick Save: Save your game progress at any point outside of battle.

The Battle Menu in Dragon Quest allows you to manage your actions during combat. The available options are:

Attack

Use your equipped weapon to attack.

Spells

Cast a learned spell.

Flee

Attempt to escape from battle. This is not always successful, but the 4th attempt is guaranteed to succeed. If a monster is asleep, fleeing is guaranteed to succeed. If a monster doesn't notice your presence at the start of battle, fleeing is also guaranteed to succeed.

Items

Use an item from your inventory or equip/change your current weapon.

Important Combat Notes:

• Monsters can sometimes strike first in battle.
• If your HP drops to zero, you will be revived by the King of Tantegel, but you will lose half your gold (unless it's stored in a Vault).
• Damage dealt and taken can vary within a range. Monsters also have a HP range.
• Critical hits bypass monster resilience.
• Some monsters may dodge attacks or use a turn to defend, reducing incoming damage by 50%.
• Poisonous Swamps deal 2 damage per step, and damage tiles deal 15 damage per step. Erdrick's Armour grants immunity to both.
• Monsters may sometimes flee from battle if they are weaker.
• If a monster suddenly attacks at the start of battle, it gets a free turn.
• If a monster lands a Snooze spell on you, you have a 50% chance of waking up each turn.

Saving:

• Normal Save: Performed by talking to the King of Tantegel Castle and selecting "Yes" to record your tale. Selecting "No" to continue your quest will end the game.
• Quick Save: Allows saving anytime, anywhere, but uses a single save slot, overwriting previous Quick Saves.
• Autosave: Automatically saves progress in a separate location. It can be loaded from the title screen, but loading another file or Quick Save will cause the Autosave option to vanish. Use with caution, as it may not always work properly; Quick Saving is recommended.

Inventory and Storage:

• You can hold up to ten items, including equipment and accessories.
• Medicinal Herbs and Magic Keys stack up to 6 but only use 1 item slot each.
• Vaults in Tantegel and Cantlin can store items and gold (up to 99000G in increments of 1000G).

Other Notes:

• The Switch version is less grindy than the NES version but still requires time for leveling and gold acquisition.
• Talk to NPCs for clues and story elements.
• Resilience is a separate stat in this version, unlike the NES original.
• Seeds provide permanent stat boosts; use them immediately to save inventory space. Consider using Quick Save and resetting for desired stat boosts.
• Cursed items will prevent you from entering Tantegel Castle and saving. Sell them instead. A person in the Town of Tantegel can remove curses for free, but you will lose the cursed item.

If you have already Quick Saved (saved your progress quickly), the option to load it will be available. Otherwise, you can venture forth into a new adventure.

Go ahead and create a new adventure log. Select which log you want, then make a name for yourself. In the NES version of Dragon Quest, your stat growth differs depending on your name, but not so much on the Switch version. So choose any name you want that's eight characters or less.

Next, select your message speed, which also affects battle speed, and select your volume levels. Once these are set, you are all set to go!

Note: Message speed and volume levels can be changed later by selecting the Misc. option in your Main Menu and then selecting Settings.